There is no scheduled air or boat service between the small town and the island, which lies seventeen miles away to the northeast on the border between New South Wales and Victoria at the eastern entrance of treacherous Bass Strait, the strip of water that separates the large island continent of Australia from its smaller island state, Tasmania. At various times the island has been joined to the mainland by a tombolo* but now shallow boiling water separates the island from the cape.

I was lucky enough to visit with a group of five other women on two days of perfect weather in June 2000. We flew in by monoplane to a small grass strip built in 1973-4 and left the jetty at the landward end to the government supply boats and more intrepid boatowners.

Gabo Island lies about half a kilometre from the coast but mariners hear the name Gabo with dread and all Australians find it uncomfortably familiar because it is heard repeatedly on news broadcasts every year at the time of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race between Christmas and New Year. Many ships have been wrecked in the area in living and recorded memory and emergency services in Mallacoota are always on stand-by over the time of the annual race.

The only human resident today is the caretaker but human habitation on the one hundred and fifty four hectares of Gabo Island dates to prehistoric times as Aboriginal middens there testify. It is a place rich in land and sea resources and has, for example, many penguin and mutton-bird rookeries in its sand-dunes. We do not know what Aborigines called it but they have given posterity its present name. "Gabo" is an Aboriginalisation of the English name "Cape Howe" bestowed by Cook in 1770.

Placed where it is at the corner of a vast island continent at the convergence of seas from the north, east and south and still on a busy sea highway, the island was destined to be the site for a lighthouse. It is not the oldest light on our coast for the first was Macquarie Light in Sydney in 1817 but the Gabo Island site was proposed in 1845 by a Select Committee of Legislative Council of NSW. In 1846 a site was selected by one C.J. Tyers on top of one of the highest of the sandy hummocks in the centre of the island, which rise to about one hundred and seventy metres.

A Mr John Morris commenced the excavations for foundations for a lighthouse in that year but by 1847 1350 (pounds) had been spent and excavations made to a depth of 66 feet without the project being completed. Work was stopped because the costs were so high.

The decision to abandon its construction must have been rued when in 1853 the "Monumental City", a new barque-rigged steamship, was wrecked nearby with a loss of thirty-three lives. The ship, a then modern marvel, had been built in Baltimore in 1850 and had brought passengers to the Victorian gold diggings on its historic crossing of the Pacific. At the time she was wrecked the ship was returning to Sydney from Melbourne.

A monument stands to its sad loss beside the three kilometre sandy track that traverses the island from one end to the other.

The highest point was chosen a second time in December 1853 when a six-metre high prefabricated timber tower brought from Sydney was erected and shone a fixed light out to sea until it burned down.

The present lighthouse was then built and completed in 1862 on the site originally recommended in 1845. For a long time this light was known as Flinders Light, to honour Matthew Flinders who was one of the two navigators to establish the existence of Bass Strait, named for his companion George Bass. We had particular reason to recall Flinders, who later was imprisoned by the French on Mauritius from 1804 until 1810 during the Napoleonic wars, for a member of the group I travelled with in June 2000 was a native of that distant island.

On one of our walks we passed a small cemetery of three graves.Two belonged to children, one John Grieve, who died on April 10 in 1861, aged twelve months and the other Sarah Ann Dodd, who died on April 22 1861, aged twenty months. Their deaths are near enough in time to suggest a contagious cause, but later that year an adult Mrs Eliza Miller died on 6 October, aged 24 years. It is thought they are all from families of the stone-masons who were building the lighthouse at that time.

These graves caused me to look long and hard at the graceful tower of the masons' finished work, Gabo Light, and I pondered the cost. It rises over forty-seven metres and is built of dressed but unpainted blocks of granite, each one having been hauled from the quarry below the lighthouse and raised into position one by one.

An enormous amount of human effort has been expended in making Gabo Island the refuge that it is today. The two oldest of the light keepers' quarters was also built in 1861 of the same stone, but undressed. The island's quarry has provided red granite for a number of buildings in Sydney and Melbourne, for example the Melbourne Post Office, and some was specially sent to London for use in constructing Australia House in the Strand. It has also been used in the construction of Mirabooka House, one of Mallacoota's heritage houses, built about 1930.

I had a number of preconceptions about Gabo Island that were all blown away the moment our light plane touched down on the grassy strip that stretches like a bandaid across the lighthouse end of the island and without which today's trippers would have to brave the heaving ocean to put ashore. I had expected sand or gravel as on the huge strip at Mallacoota.

Then Gabo is hillier than it seems as we gaze at it daily stretched along our north-easterly horizon off Cape Howe. Despite its height in 1895 a tidal wave reached almost sixty metres above sea level to the signalman's cottage below the airstrip).

I had thought to see rocks and they were there a-plenty and in luminous ochre-red, but I had not expected fresh water which abounds (although piped water must be used sparingly by guests). Little soaks break through the surface even on the rocks around the lighthouse. Is this drainage coming through the earth from the mainland range? The wild cattle thrive on it and so do many small forests of gnarled banksia and giant honey myrtle.

The shy dark cattle** peer out from the shadows of these trees and in the branches roost chooks. The springs and lagoons also provide ample water for a thriving garden. We used some parsley from it to dress our  green salad at dinner.

During our two days there we saw whales playing about the island, as dolphins do beside a ship. We saw dolphins, too and lone sea eagles planing the columns of warm air. These sights were privileges as was witnessing the parade of fairy penguins at dusk and by moonlight. Hundreds of these sleek small creatures jet-skimmed to shore within a few feet of us as we sat watching, unmoving and mute and they emerged chattering about their day's work at sea. Their burrows riddle the island and if you don't fall into one of them, then a cow track will turn your ankle but not many hazards other than the elements threaten humans here. Snakes and ticks are unknown and the houses are a strong and reassuring shelter.

Two of the three houses are enclosed within the same thick stone wall which extends on one side to the lighthouse, no doubt providing shelter in high wind to the unlucky keeper who needed to run down its length to trim the light in a storm.

Of some 50,000 existing lighthouses world-wide 600 or so are to be found in Australia but many of these are no longer staffed. The first recorded lighthouse in the world appears to have been on the promontory of Sigaeum near the Hellespont and the Sea of Marmora, in 660 B.C. not far from Gallipoli. The most enduring lighthouse would have to be the Pharos of Alexandria built around 261 B.C. and shining until it was destroyed by an earthquake in the 13th century.

Gabo Light is one Australian lighthouse which is almost wave-washed. In the storms that can keep people confined to the island for days, even weeks, waves must surely break at the base of Gabo Light, yet it stands unswerving after almost one hundred and fifty years of service. One gets a strong feeling of safety near the stone buildings of the island.

 *A tombolo is a bar of sand or other sediment tying an island to another island or to the mainland.

**studies have shown that a limited number of cattle grazing on islands with introduced grasses benefits the nesting of the penguins, whose numbers were found to decrease when the cattle were removed and grasses could flourish unchecked.

GETTING THERE Mallacoota Air Services Phone 0408 580 806

STAYING THERE Bookings are made through Parks Victoria. Contact Pam and the other helpful Parks staff Parks Victoria PO Box 179 Mallacoota 3892 Phone 03 5158 0219 Fax 03 5158 0583

Peak season rates are $180.00 per night up to eight people for that price and includes GST)

Off peak rates are $140.00 per night for up to eight people including GST) Minimum stay 2 nights

Accommodation is in the assistant lighthouse keeper's residence which has 3 bedrooms and can accommodate up to 8 people. Bed linen, bedding and towels are provided, but you need to bring your own food. The kitchen has a big refrigerator, a microwave oven and four burner gas stove with oven. The building is heated and has a bathroom and two toilets. For the many walks wear sneakers.

Websites:

http://www.lighthouse.net.au/lights   Click on Victoria, East and Gippsland Coast, and Gabo Island (threelinks).

http://www.parkweb.vic.gov.au

http://www.bluewaterweb.com/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/nauticalcharts/prodpages/aus802.htm?E+mystore4  

http://zuma.lib.utk.edu/lights/g_lakes.html

http://www.cr.nps.gov/maritime/lt_index.htm

http://www.lighthouse.fsnet.co.uk/main.htm

Association of Lighthouse Keepers [UK]: http://www.lighthouse.fsnet.co.uk/

Lighthouse Heritage: Index to National Maritime Initiative Lighthouse Sites: http://www.cr.nps.gov/maritime/lt_index.htm  

All lighthouses known to offer guest accommodations: http://www.maine.com/lights/others.htm

Lighthouse--Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.cr.nps.gov/maritime/light/faq.htm